Where is Golan Heights?

What country is Golan Heights located in?

It is one of the most disputed territories in the entire Middle East and at the same time, for almost forty years, it has been the quietest war front in the region: a plateau with a high strategic value, fertile soil of volcanic origin and rich in aquifers, the Golan is today squeezed between Israel, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon. Territory belonging Moderna Syria since 1923, it was occupied in 1967 by Israel and became, fourteen years later, an integral part of the Jewish state under the name ‘northern district. This annexation, however, has never been recognized internationally and for decades the United Nations has imposed on the Jewish state the return to Syria of the occupied territory.

Since 2000, official negotiations between Damascus and Tel Aviv have been stalled and any new negotiations will have to start from scratch. Syria, which in the context of the 1973 Arab-Israeli war tried in vain to liberate the region, continues to condition any future agreement with Israel to its withdrawal behind the lines of June 4, 1967, the eve of the outbreak of the Six-Day War. Officially in favor of reaching an agreement with its counterpart, Tel Aviv considers the Syrian request an unacceptable ‘precondition’ for starting direct talks. Between February and November 2010, the Israeli Parliament also passed two laws that will certainly not facilitate the consensual resolution of the dispute: the first provides for economic incentives for those who choose to live in Jewish settlements on the Heights; the second requires a qualified two-thirds majority of the Knesset to ratify any peace agreements that provide for withdrawal from the plateau. If it is not achieved, according to the law it will be necessary to address the entire Israeli people in a referendum.

Source: treccani it enciclopedia